After wonderful trips in Africa (Botswana, South Africa and Sambia) with other companies and perfect cars we planned our next trip to Tanzania. We found on the Internet these two comapnies, which finaly appeared to be the same. Reservation and contact went very smooth and we always received answers within hours. We thought this makes a good impression ! But this impression changed rapidly when we arrived in Tanzania !
We arrived in Dar Es Saalam November 2012 and surprisingly at 7AM sharp ! two „cars“ drove arround the corner. The first sight already gave us bad feelings. The cars were very dirty, scratched and every question we asked to the staff was answered with „this is no problem“. As they are based in Nairobi, they couldn’t change anything anyway…
After having payed the full amount with the handover the staff ran to the bus and our nightmare began:

•During loading our luggage we saw, that one tire was already going flat. The first expense, repair the tire

•On the first kilometers, we then saw, that one car had no working AC and Revmeter besides that bad working breaks, front light shining in all direction exept straight and the window crank handles were broken, oppening a windows was a nice workout.
No electrical equipement like radio, car lighter etc. was working and the highjack was going only up. And that is only the description of the „fully equipped“ and according the webpage so called „new, clean 4x4 cars“…..

•The camping equipment: Fridges didn’t work, moudly chairs, a very small table, not working torch, and the worst: the watercontainer was used for fuel before…..

•First breakdown: In the middle of the Serengeti, suddenly, the engine stopped working. Reason: The batteryholder broke, and teared off the fuelpump cable. Thanks to a ranger from a hotel, this could be fixed by him

•Second Breakdown: In the middle of a group of elefants, we could not start the engine anymore.With the help of another ranger (Gladly, the people of Tanzania are verry helpful and friendly), we could reach the Serengeti garage. The starter was fixed with two cables „the african way “ for only 30000 TZS

•Third breakdown: In the morning, nothing was working anymore. We towed the car to the in meantime „known“ garage. They fixed the battery within 30 minutes

•Fourth breakdown: Arriving at the gate, we saw, that one tire was flat. We looked again and realised, that instead of 6 screws only 2 were fixing the wheel to the car. From our in meantime known garage (one hour drive away), 3 mechanics came to fix our problem. For "only" 220US$. Before that we had already spent hours to reach George by phone. His answer was only, that he couldn’t help us.

•Fifth and final breakdown: After 1 hour driving, it started smelling like burned plastic, and only seconds later, the engine stopped, this time it was really completly gone. We spend a wonderful night with the very nice and helpful Massai people on the street where we had to overnight

•After having tried to call George again several times, without success, the next morning a tour guide gave us a phonenumber of the rangerstation from Ngorongro. They came 2hrs later and started the engine by pushing the car. But the success only lasted 200 meters, then smoke came out the engine hood. Reason: Every remaining cable burned. The mechanics said clearly, that there was no chance to repair it. We towed the car to the rangerstation.

•After about 20 calls, we finally reached George, who sent a „new“ car to the gate as exchange for the broken one. We clearly advised that he should give his drivers the monney for our expenses (500US$). Ten calls and discussions later, the car was delivered with 12 hours delay, no cash for expenses and empty fueltank to the gate.

•The "new (420000 km)" car was at least running with the heatingsystem on full power, which couldn’t be switched off.

To make the story not too long (ok we know it is already too long ), we finally reached the airport in Dar es Saalam with no further breakdown (what a success !). We thought, we handover the cars at 4 o’clock as agreed. And again, it was promised that they will give us the money for our expenses. What happend: nobody was there and they did not pick up the phone. After 1 hour we received a text message saying "the driver missed the bus. They will be there in 2 hours".... 3 hours later, still nobody was there and our flight was leaving. Suddenly the assistant of George called, that we should leave the keys in the cars and that they will transfer our expenses to our Credit Card. What a nice dream which didn’t come true until today.
We wrote several mails to George giving him a last chance to at least reimburse the money, he did not even reply.

Conclusion:
If you like to have trouble and get ripped of, rent a car from this company.
If you want to enjoy a safe self drive safary, choose another one

What is the name of the company?

Sound like typical African scammers.

vette

Vette - it is in the subject line

Tanzania 4X4 Car Hire: Budget Friendly 4X4 Car Hire and Rental Company in Tanzania


Tanzania 4X4 Car Hire Ltd
Cellphone:+255782471964
Tel: +254 20 2228725/2251427
Cellphone: +254 722-529228
Email: enquiry@tanzania4X4carhire.com


and

4x4 selfdrive, rooftop tent,kenya,Tanzania,Uganda,Rwanda
4X4 Kenya ltd
NCM Building, Opp. Odeon Cinema, Tom Mboya Street
P.O Box 22129-00400, Nairobi
Tel 254-20-2228725/2251427
cellphone 0722-529228
Telefax 254-20-2228275
email info@4X4-kenya.com

Note the cellphone and telephone numbers are the same...

The same post is over on trip adviser
http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic...ire-Kenya.html

... coming up in google for these people - they will soon realize they have a bad reputation coming.

humm similar post
http://www.tripadvisor.in/ShowTopic-...nya-Kenya.html

------------------------ From here pipo1967 ? [edit - only one post ... may not be back?]

Possibly contact the Kenyan Ministry of Tourism http://www.tourism.go.ke/ ?


If you paid by credit card then you may dispute that the services were not received and ask the card people for a refund...

---------------------------
I think this is a good example of why post on "good" things (hotels, campgrounds, car hire etc) rather than post on bad... I'd rather know what to do .... what not to do does not give me the "good"?

Hi Waren
we are working on a letter to both tourismboard, Kenya and Tanzania.
Maybe they do something, so that no other tourist will be cheat anymore from those companies